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School timetabling
Generate, validate, and refine timetables with constraint-based solvers and planner control.
Juho Isola, Smootables founder
What makes automatic school timetabling reliable instead of a black-box export? Planners need visibility into constraint validation, solver progress, and manual overrides when leadership changes a rule mid-cycle. Whether they use Untis, aSc Timetables, or another established tool, they still need plain-language explanations when a run ends without a usable timetable.
These guides cover data preparation, generation, validation, and conflict resolution in Smootables. They help you compare AI-assisted and rule-based approaches and decide when to rerun the solver versus adjust soft constraints.
These guides cover planner process and decisions, not a Smootables product comparison. To evaluate capabilities, see automatic school timetabling software.
Guides in this topic
Select a guide below for process-focused depth on each step.
Timetable generation
How constraint solvers place lessons into periods using hard and soft rules. Explains generation runs, partial solutions, and when to iterate before publishing.
Read guide →Constraint validation
Validate rules before and after the solver runs so conflicts surface with plain-language explanations. Covers pre-solve checks that prevent wasted generation time.
Read guide →Planner control
Manual edits, pinned lessons, and scenario comparisons without breaking the underlying model. Shows how planners keep control when AI suggests optimizations.
Read guide →Data preparation
Prepare groups, teacher assignments, and room lists so the solver receives consistent input. Highlights common Excel import errors and how to fix them once.
Read guide →Conflict resolution
Resolve room clashes, teacher double-bookings, and curriculum gaps with traceable fixes. Explains when to relax soft constraints versus restructure the year plan.
Read guide →
Related product pages
- Automatic school timetabling softwareConstraint-based timetable generation built into a structured planning workspace, with pre-solve validation, infeasibility reports, and full planner editing afterwards.
- AI powered school timetablingAn AI-powered planning and timetabling workspace where constraint-based generation produces feasible schedules and a planner assistant helps you explain, tune, and improve them without bypassing your rules.
- Manual timetabling alternatives (2026)When manual timetable placement still works, when it starts to cost more than it saves, and the range of tools that take work off planners, from spreadsheets to AI-powered platforms.
See how Smootables fits your school
Book a walkthrough and we will map Smootables to your planning, workload, and timetabling process.